President Kumaratunga UNESCO consultant

COLOMBO: Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga has accepted responsibilities as a Senior Consultant to UNESCO for Education in Asia, at the invitation of UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, and UNESCO Director General, K. Matsura.

She will initially focus on South Asia. Kumaratunga has requested that Sri Lanka be excluded from her area of responsibility, states a press release by the former President's office.

Former President Kumaratunga wishes to reject totally, the various news items and insulting comments and cartoons carried in the government media, as well as by the free media, that she was pleading for jobs from international organisation, her office said.

She states that she does not need to do this. Kumaratunga has, since her retirement from Presidency, attended several conferences and seminars as a keynote speaker on the invitation of several governments and international organisations.